Chelsea Marriner is going to Melbourne with the Paw Blacks
As a child Chelsea Marriner watched an episode of Tux Wonder Dogs and thought "I'd like to do that". So she did.
Almost 20 years later the Rotorua dog handler has been selected in the Paw Blacks team to represent New Zealand at the Australian Agility Nationals in Melbourne thismonth.
Marriner described the sport as "show jumping for dogs".
"The judges design different courses and you're aiming to do the fastest run with no faults to win. I went to England in 2010 [to represent New Zealand], but that was using borrowed dogs. This will be my first time taking my own dog - it's quite exciting."
She will be taking her border collie, suitably named Legend, to compete in Melbourne.
"It was hard to pick, I run a fairly good team of six dogs at the moment, but Legend was the go-to really. He's 8 now so I hope he's matured. Our last New Zealand nationals we had, on Labour weekend last year, he was really good.
"He's one of those dogs, he's either fantastic or he's 100 miles per hour but he's not quite so fantastic. He's a bit sketchy sometimes, slightly over-enthusiastic."
Chelsea Marriner and her dog Legend are going to Melbourne with the Paw Blacks this month. Photo / Ben Fraser
Marriner said the bond between human and dog was crucial, particularly when travelling overseas.
"By the time your dogs have gone through flights and airports and transport, if you're not a strong team before you leave I think your chances of doing well over there are pretty slim. They have to trust that they can get out of the plane or the taxi and it will be same old.
"I think we have similar personalities, he's a bit more continuously enthusiastic about everything than I am, he's 110 per cent enthusiasm all the time."
She said she enjoyed seeing her hard work in training pay off during competition.
"I keep saying I'm losing enthusiasm for it, but I just get too much enjoyment out of training and working with dogs to give it up. I'm not a particularly competitive person, but I like seeing the time and the effort you put into a dog pay off. It's quite addictive.
"With a dog like Legend we probably only train once a month. He's been competing for six-and-a-half years now. I keep telling myself he should know what he's doing by now - whether that's wishful thinking or not.
"He won Jumpers Champion of Champion classes at our nationals last year, which is one of the elite ones, and he's won a few top grades just at standard shows this year."
In what is a proud month for Marriner's extended family, she will be able to swap New Zealand representative tales with her cousin Kaleb Trask, who has been selected in the New Zealand under-20 squad for this month's Oceania Rugby Championship, also in Australia.
"It's pretty cool, he's such a good dude and he's done so well. It's cool that we are both going similar times to a similar area to represent New Zealand in completely different sports."
The Australian Agility Nationals run from April 11-15. Marriner and Legend will also compete in local dog shows while there.
